Friday, May 2, 2014

(US) (PA) Birth and Death Records To Be Available Online

Posted by: Jan Meisels Allen

In December 2011 PA SB 361 was signed into law allowing
birth records to be available 105 years from date of birth and death records 50
years from date of death.Another
provision was to transfer the certificates to the Pennsylvania State Archives
once they become open records--all deaths certificates from 1906 to 1961 and
birth certificates from 1906. As each year goes by another year's worth of
birth and death certificates would become open records. The State Archives
signed a contract with Ancestry.com to have the records scanned and made
available online.

As of April 18th the initial batch of Pennsylvania state
death certificates is now online through Ancestry.com.The records are being phased in and the
schedule as currently noted by the Pennsylvania Historical Records Access
(PaHR) is:

1906-24 death certificates – April 2014

1925-44 death certificates – June 2014

1945-63 death certificates – November 2014

1906 birth certificates – March 2015

As part of the agreement, only Pennsylvania residents
have free access to this particular database as they do with other Pennsylvania
State Archives records already scanned and made available online by Ancestry.
Free access for Pennsylvania residents is accomplished by registering online at
no cost through this link (please be sure to read the instructions carefully): http://www.portal.state.pa.us/ .
Pennsylvania residents that already have a subscription to Ancestry do not need
to do anything as long as they continue to have a subscription to Ancestry.

Out of state residents do need a subscription to Ancestry
to access these records. However, many libraries and research centers everywhere
provide free access to Ancestry. After three years the records will be moved to
the Pennsylvania State Archives website and be free to all.

As the dates are into the future for most of the records
mentioned above, it is best to check as it is always possible that the dates
may change.